Sucker Punch: I Reject Your Reality and Substitute it with Dragons

Besides doing fun relationship stuff like arguing about how to discipline our dog, New Times blogger Tyler Hughes and his girlfriend, Jackie Cronin, go to the movies.

Emily Browning as Baby Doll

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Tyler: Wow, that was like a steam punk, anime, video game nerd's wet dream. I think we just saw someone's wet dream in movie form.

Jackie: Ok, I'll have to agree with you there. When I first saw the trailer for this movie I was like "Wow, they really sexed up Sailor Moon!" But seriously, this movie was a little bit of a mess.

Tyler: Just a little bit. The action was cool, like that scene where they're shooting up orcs in some castle or, my personal favorite, the WWI scene with the steam punk Nazi zombies. Though that did feel like it was ripped right out of a video game. Cool as they were, those action set pieces felt like they had little to do with the rest of the film.

Jackie: Right, I was actually more interested in the asylum/brothel sections of the story. Oh, that's another thing. What was with the different "dream levels," or I guess they were "memory levels."

Tyler: Yeah, that was a lot like Inception, but way more confusing. I didn't realize that the brothel was actually how Baby Doll, played by Emily Browning, imagined the asylum until almost the end. I also thought the performances in general, with the exception of Oscar Isaac who played Blue and Jena Malone who played Rocket, were kind of wooden.

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Jackie: Yeah, Blue was such a bastard. I think it helped too that he had the bad guy mustache for most of the movie. But most of the other performances were just kind of there, like Vanessa Hudgens, she didn't really have anything to do other than look good in a corset. Oh and Jon Hamm, even though he was billed on the poster, had about four lines.

Tyler: Yeah, I was hoping he would have had a bigger part. Again, he was just kind of there. It was also kind of weird how Browning had very little emotion throughout her whole story -- all we get are pouty lips, giant eyes and great explosion walk-aways. The concept for her fantasy was kind of interesting, every time she would do her sexy dance she would be transported in to a new fantastical world. Cool? Yes. Make sense? No.

Jackie: Ok, this might be a little weird. I thought the soundtrack was awesome, but it was for the wrong movie. The covers of the songs were totally amazing and I would listen to them again but in the film they were just too spot on. Seriously, if you're gonna play "Where is My Mind?" and "White Rabbit" when your protagonist is entering an asylum for the insane you're really shoving it down the audience's throat. I get it. It says asylum on the front door.

Tyler: Yeah, I feel that this film was just an excuse to get some crazy action sequences put together. Seriously, in what other context are you going to have robots, giant samurai, orcs, dragons, pixie ninjas in corsets, machine guns and Nazi zombies all in the same movie? It's just a shame that the story didn't hold up. I was hoping for another 300, but ended up with 300-lite, without the testosterone.

Jackie: That didn't really stop the crowd from getting in to it though. I've heard less cheering and clapping at a baseball game.

Tyler: Well, in their defense I think a lot of them were high. Like that guy in front of us who noshed on a tub of popcorn, a hotdog, a box of skittles and a Icee.

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